In one of the Forums a few years ago, Tec had said -

If you set your draft scouting budgets high enough and rank your prospects appropriately, you can draft decent major league talent through the second and possibly the third rounds of the amateur draft.

Can someone elaborate on the related strategies here? The thread ended, and I haven't found anything since so far.

You can get BL players deeper than that but they're more specialty guys.    They'll have a wart or two and you just need to know how to utilize them.  

Pick 205  Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Cozy Flores    Really nothing more than a stopgap pitcher but he did get almost 400 IP
Pick 199  Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Shayne Frank  Average hitter with a good eye.    Got close to 1800 PA.  .790+ OPS

I didn't draft this guy, he was pick 664, but I picked him up off the WW.  Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: George Frye   I have no idea how that happened.  Doesn't appear to be a DITR.

Pick 180 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Ed Dunn  2400+ AB as a D-spec.   Won 3 straight GG as a CF.

One thing I've noticed is that there at ever gain types of players who are naturally ranked pretty low on the draft board. In any draft where I have a decent scouting budget, I can always find future ML relief pitchers, designated hitters, utility infielders, and defensive catchers in the 50-100 slots. I try to move these guys up to the 15-25 range; high enough that I'm likely to be the first to get them, but not high enough that I'll draft them in the first round or two.

I swear, every single draft has a competent catcher hidden on the depths somewhere. Often it's a guy who can't hit righthanders, but can still hit lefties and has a decent PC. Future platoon guy.

Briefly, this is what I do.   Sort by specific ratings.   Copy/paste those above my minimum.   Plug all the copy/pasted players into my formula.  Rank.

The D-spec guys end up at the bottom of my rankings(which might be 25 deep or it might be 50 deep) and I usually get them in the 3rd-4th round.  I probably have 5 high AA/AS/PC catchers that don't know which end of the bat to hold in my minors in each world.

Interesting stuff. I'll be spending a lot more time with the draft rankings in mauer. Haven't used them to this point because I'm still a noob.

Posted by arcticlegend on 2/27/2015 4:03:00 PM (view original):
One thing I've noticed is that there at ever gain types of players who are naturally ranked pretty low on the draft board. In any draft where I have a decent scouting budget, I can always find future ML relief pitchers, designated hitters, utility infielders, and defensive catchers in the 50-100 slots. I try to move these guys up to the 15-25 range; high enough that I'm likely to be the first to get them, but not high enough that I'll draft them in the first round or two.

I swear, every single draft has a competent catcher hidden on the depths somewhere. Often it's a guy who can't hit righthanders, but can still hit lefties and has a decent PC. Future platoon guy.

This, but I take it one step further.  After all the above, I look for guys with low enough projected OVR to get a DitR but who will become ML players if they get one; almost always catchers and low ST/DUR relievers.  I've hit once or twice on that; Luis Lee in the 4th round is the only one I've kept, but I've traded another, I think.

So your strategy is to tear your team down completely but you have no idea how to work the draft?


OK, good talk.

 Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Buddy Houston   One of my favorites.  145th pick played 1200  ML games

Houston is definitely a quality player when he is able to play. I'd say you lucked out that his only major injury happened towards the end of his career.

You can find hidden gems if you look. But you have to know what you're looking for.

Man, Mike is sure hard on the Noobs. But, as long as he keeps answering my questions...

Yeah it sounds like you can fill out a lot of the margins in your roster through some of these targeted specialists/bench players. I'm eager to dig in when mauer's draft comes up.

I'm sure it seems that way to you.   Just so anyone reading this has some insight for me being "hard on the Noobs":  http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=483254&Page=1

Essentially, you joined a world and offered out your best players for "not much in return".    Your plan was to burn it down and start over.   I think that's dumb, and pointless, but, if that's what you're going to do, that's what you're going to do.   However, one would expect the team destroyer to have a rebuild plan.   One would expect the team destroyer to use the draft in the process. 

And, apparently, you have no idea how to rank players for the draft.    That seems, to me at least, to be an insane "rebuild" plan.

Couple of thoughts:

1/ We're not just talking about targeted specialists/bench players.  This is a way to attack positional requirements.  I've seen somewhat of a bias against "taking a catcher early" or "taking a Reliever early" unless the player is a super stud.  Since default rankings push this set of players down a bit, by paying attention to them you can leapfrog owners who are not.

2/ If you just draft by default rankings, you run the occasional risk of low-impact players being ranked too high... draft busts.  I've been guilty of a few of these.  Great athlete, high makeup, things like that... utility-player type skills.  I don't particularly want a utility player in the first round.  When I rank players now, I try to look out for these land mines and move them down.

Mike once again you have proved your superior intellect.

When I say you are being hard on the noob, I'm talking about the sarcasm. I guess its important to you to show you know better. I'm not gonna judge Mike. You became a troll for some reason. Maybe your kid has cancer. Maybe you lost your job. Not sure.

But anyway, I admit I made a few mistakes in 7Yankees7 and Gleeman2, and thats fine. What you say is right. I should have spent more time examining the draft (time I haven't had recently). You live and you learn. I'm having fun with the game, reading into the Forums, and asking questions. Making adjustments. I'll be doing that with the upcoming draft in mauer.